


you're my finest inspiration

by butterugh (urieskooki)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Alternate Universe - Photographer, M/M, johnny is A Bit Gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 08:16:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11940051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urieskooki/pseuds/butterugh
Summary: Every concept Johnny's ever had fits. For a single fleeting and ridiculous moment, he thinks this is a face he’d like to photograph for the rest of his career.





	you're my finest inspiration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smjit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smjit/gifts).



Johnny knows very little about this Lee Taeyong. There aren’t articles about him, he doesn’t do interviews, and he’s relatively unknown even in this industry. Nobody even knows the name when Johnny asks, yet he’ll show people one of his latest spreads they say,  _ “Ah, him. I’ve seen his pretty face before.” _

Not even Johnny knew his name and he’s been following Switch magazine since it started a few years ago, the first cover of which had caught his eye so completely that he felt swallowed in the eyes of the beautiful boy in a floor-length black kilt and a look so sharp it could cut steel. Even before he was hired he knew it was the place he needed to be.

Yuta is still just as handsome as he was then, but there are other models that catch his eye easier, linger in his subconscious long after he’s put down his camera.

(Ten also remains as effortlessly breathtaking as ever, but in a  _ ‘I-like-to-look-at-you-but-that’s-about-it’  _ kind of way. Johnny has long since discovered that looking is the furthest he wants to go; Friendship is enough).

But Taeyong strikes a chord within him somewhere between the part of his brain that tells his finger to press down on the shutter, and the one that provides him with imagery of handsome men in a set that had once just been a fleeting thought in his head (Maybe even the part of his head that gives him images of nameless faces and bodies when he can’t sleep).

He’s  _ inspiringly  _ beautiful, from the moment Johnny gets the email from the editor with his new coworker’s name typed in deceptively even font, he can already envision this face surrounded by plastic white bubbles and resin tears, pink stripes and eight-bit fruit, dark backgrounds and darker molasses sticking to his skin. Every concept he’s ever had fits. For a single fleeting and ridiculous moment, he thinks this is a face he’d like to photograph for the rest of his career.

Instead of lingering on this, he fires off his own email to Taeil about the concept and sits back with a pencil in hand and a notebook in the other, already picturing Taeyong spread out amongst great swathes of baby blue silk.

 

He asks around the other photographers in the company building about what it’s like working with Taeyong. Far too many say he’s unapproachable. The rest say the contrary. But they all say he doesn’t talk much. 

 

Johnny spends far too many late nights drawing up sets, and the first day of the shoot finds him with dark undereye circles and clothes that smell too much like spilt coffee for it to be an aesthetic choice. He arrives earlier than the makeup artist and stylist to set the room up before anyone else has a chance to see it.

(It’s somewhere out of town, a house Doyoung had taken one look at and lit up, jabbing his finger at Johnny’s screen just enough to smear greasy fingerprints atop the rental price. 

“We have to use it. I don’t care if I have to pay for it myself, we’re using it.”)

He wants it to be a surprise (not just for the other member’s of his team). Despite having never met Taeyong before Johnny wants their first meeting to be a success. He wants to impress him.

Doyoung arrives while he’s setting up his lights and groans, “You and your fucking sets, Johnny. How long is this going to take to take down?”

After that comes Mark, wheeling his kit behind him with his free hand stuck into his pockets. He whistles when he catches Johnny stirring a tin of powder around contemplatively.

“I’m hoping I’m not gonna be the one cleaning that up.” He starts fiddling around his tiny little corner, unpacking palettes and leaving them stacked atop the table Johnny had remembered to bring for him. “Last time you made me deal with all that kinda shit.”

“Language, Mark. And I paid you for it.”

“No, you told me I had to otherwise you’d kick my ass.” Mark blows a fine dusting of powder off one of his brushes dramatically, glaring at Johnny all the while. He quickly begins setting up his lines of cosmetics, separating them by kind, and beyond that, colour. When they’re to his liking he looks back up at Johnny, who’d completely neglected his own job in favour of watching the meticulous way Mark keeps his tools.

“What? Taeyong will be here soon, so you’d better hurry if you wanna be done in time to watch me do his face.”

Johnny lets out an affronted noise that sounds like a cross between a snort and a choke, but it’s ugly and hacking enough that Mark automatically shifts out of his way for fear of flying spit. For a few seconds longer, Johnny tries to clear his throat, eyes watering before he chuckles hoarsely.

“Oh, man, why would I want to do that? I’m not even… interested in Taeyong or anything, geez, what are you suggesting there? Weird.” He turns around and starts ordering the various buckets lined up beside the wall in order of when he intends to use them to avoid Mark’s judgemental stare.

“You... always watch me do makeup? Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

“I’m fine. Shut the fuck up.” He goes back to fiddling with the buckets after shooting Mark a wounded look, “It’s not. I don’t.” He coughs again and Mark kicks his ankle in response.

“Sure, whatever. Quit being weird, Johnnyboy. Don’t freak the model out.” 

Jaehyun arrives with his own kit and beelines for the small row of powerpoints beside Mark’s station, plugging in his tools with an intensity bordering on obsessive. He glances up at the others and mutters,  _ “Taeyong’s outside.” _

Johnny feels his cheeks heat up. Doyoung and Mark both make equally disgusted noises before Mark shoves him towards the setup, “You’re not done yet.”

 

Taeyong is even prettier in real life, if that’s even possible.

He’s got these catlike features that should look out of place, but they don’t. Johnny can’t help himself from watching Jaehyun do his hair from a safe distance, watching deft fingers tease and shift individual strands precisely to where they should go. Mark takes one look at the clothing Doyoung has been hanging up and starts rearranging his palettes, putting different colours on top of the carefully sorted piles.

Johnny isn’t sure what some of them are for, truthfully, despite watching Mark do makeup for this long. He doesn’t understand the point of covering up people’s bare skin to the point of artificiality, only to add the flush and the freckles back.

“Mark, he’s done.” Jaehyun prods Taeyong in their direction, familiarity lingering with his fingers. Taeyong stumbles a little and grumbles something that sounds a lot like  _ cut it out. _

“Hey, Markie.” Taeyong smiles easily, plopping down into the free seat and wheeling it right up close until Mark recoils, screwing up his nose. “What have you got in store for me today?”

“Who knows what Johnny wants.” Mark sighs, but the apples of his cheeks are rosier than usual.  _ So Taeyong has that effect on everyone then,  _ Johnny thinks as Mark cautiously picks up one of those little teardrop sponges, squishing it around in his palm. Johnny sees another one and goes to pick it up but Mark slaps his hand away, whining. “Keep your dirty hands to yourself.”

Taeyong stifles a laugh, bites his lip until the flesh around his front teeth goes white.

“My hands aren’t dirty.” He defends, rubbing his fingers along Mark’s shoulder, “See? I washed them before I came over here.”

“Don’t touch my kit! You don’t let me touch your cameras, so I won’t let you near my stuff.”

“Ah, you must be the photographer.”

“He’s the one and only, Johnny Seo. Who can’t keep to his own station.” Mark squirts a clear viscous liquid onto the back of his hand and starts gently smoothing it out over Taeyong’s nose and cheeks, “He’s annoying like that.”

The embarrassment actually takes him by surprise considering he’s usually shameless about things like this, but perhaps this is just the same effect Taeyong has that made Mark’s flush. Even when his face is bare and Johnny can see the raw red of his chapped lips and a dark tint to the skin around his eyes, he’s still beautiful, and that’s unnatural.

“Does he usually stare like this?” Taeyong has his eyes closed which only makes it even more humiliating.

Mark clucks his tongue as he fusses around with concealer (the one thing Johnny knows about), a palette of different shades of tan. For once he is merciful to Johnny it seems, _ thank the heavens.  _ “Yep.” He says, popping the ‘p’, “He likes to watch  _ real close  _ to make sure everything fits into his theme. He’s an asshole about his themes.”

“Language.” Doyoung and Taeyong remind in unison, despite Doyoung being in the next room over.

“You’re not gonna tell him off for insulting my themes?” Johnny calls, feigning injury. He can almost feel Doyoung rolling his eyes.

“Nope.”

“Ah, I thought we were friends. Bastard.” Johnny rolls his neck around to crack it, just to see Mark flinch. A smear of concealer marrs Taeyong’s eyebrow hairs, sticks them together in clumps.

“Do you mind?” Mark winces, brush between his teeth while he swabs at the mistake with a makeup wipe. He mutters under his breath, probably cursing at Johnny, but it makes Taeyong let out a little wheezing laugh. 

Watching Mark make up a face is watching an artist create a work - he’s methodical and precise, and calm in every stroke of his brush. When he pats on a layer of foundation, it’s just enough to even out Taeyong’s complexion without making him look plastic. He blends it right down to Taeyong’s collar and then some, dabbing a glowy liquid across his (already prominent enough as it is) collarbones.

His array of eyeshadow palettes come out next, all balanced on his knees as he alternates between a deep burgundy and a lighter pink. Johnny has only ever tried eyeshadow once - when Mark broke both his arms in a freak skateboard accident and they hadn’t been able to get a backup guy. It had come out muddy and disgusting and Mark had almost re-broken his arm laughing until he fell off his chair.

(“Were you  _ trying  _ to make him look like he’s been punched in the face?”)

Johnny has not touched makeup further than concealer and tinted moisturiser since.

When Mark is done, Johnny nearly breaks his neck turning his head to pretend he hasn’t been memorising the slope of Taeyong’s nose before he opens his eyes.

“Good for the shoot?” Mark asks and grabs Taeyong’s chin between his nimble fingers to tilt it for Johnny to stare at a bit more. Sometimes, however rare, Mark isn’t as much of a little shit. Johnny makes a note to buy him that lipstick set he’s been eyeing up for weeks.

“Perfect.” He gives a thumbs up and stands abruptly, motioning for Doyoung and Jaehyun. “Alright, first set, we’re good to go. After that I’m gonna need another style for the bath setup.”

They’ve all worked out something of a system while in the shadows of other artists in the company. Being ignored by the CEO only hurts for so long, and by then they’d figured out what to do with a considerable lack of hands on set.

Mark deals with lighting, Doyoung alternates between assisting him and assisting Johnny. And Jaehyun… likes to play DJ.

(“Any suggestions?” He asks as everyone readies themselves at their respective stations.

_ “Can you put on A Thousand Miles?” _

“Suggestions from anyone but Mark?”)

With something calm and floaty filtering through Jaehyun’s speakers, Taeyong leans against a decorative tree and thus begins the first half of the shoot.

 

Photographing Taeyong is a dream and a half. 

He possesses a grace that’s perfect for this look, all soft half-lidded eyes and natural pouts. Mark has outdone himself fitting the theme with gold highlight illuminating the bridge of his nose and cheekbones, burgundy pooled on his lip. The clothes are beautiful - floaty white shirts only tethered by belts and the garters around his thighs: the ones Doyoung keeps in bulk to attach to shirt-tails, hidden under trousers. His dark hair falls delicately around his face, and Johnny is in his element.

The first half goes smoothly, right up until they’re preparing for the second half with Doyoung putting the finishing touches on his new outfit and Mark is spraying Taeyong’s face with something in a little black bottle. It smells good enough that Johnny has to fight the urge to lean in and sniff it.

His eyelids are pink and glossy, liquid gold brushed over his cupid’s bow and brow bone. His cheeks are perfectly pink, like he’d snuck away while Johnny was rearranging things for this part and done things he’d get fired for (Mark helpfully supplies that the blush he used had a name that could possibly allude to that. Johnny chokes on his water and Jaehyun has to slap his back until he stops coughing).

Everything goes perfectly until Johnny starts to fill the bathtub, then Taeyong takes one look at it and says, “I hope that’s been cleaned.”

It hasn’t.

But Johnny has just poured the only bucket of colouring (powdered milk and a crushed pink bath bomb) he’d had on hand into the water, which means he now has to drain it, send Doyoung back to the city (half an hour away if the traffic is good) to get more, during which Taeyong strips off the designer clothes and starts scrubbing at the tub in his underwear.

“Uh, I’m gonna have to go. Phone call.” Johnny excuses himself to no reply and slips through the front door into the cool air. They’ve only got the place until twelve. Which means the shoot has to be done and they have to be packed up and gone by then. The sun is no longer as full and bright as it was at midday.

The shoot is no longer as full of promise as it once was. Irritation lingers underneath his fingernails, along with the itch to finish up and leave.

Eventually Doyoung texts him to say he’s at the store. Johnny tells him to hurry, but also to drive safe. But mostly to hurry.

He probably didn’t need to get this many photos for a spread this small, but he just wants to be sure he gets a wide variety, so Taeil has a lot to work with. There’s nothing worse than finishing a shoot only to be told there aren’t enough “good shots” - he has to either give up some of his spaces, remaster a few existing to make them fit, or even worse, re-do the whole setup to get a few more usable ones. He’s long since learned it’s better to have a few too many good ones than none at all.

Thankfully, this shoot isn’t about the clothes.

It’s not uncommon for him to get into deep shit about not fulfilling the amount of coverage the designer wanted. Faces are more interesting, but he doesn’t want to  _ do _ portraits. He wants to be  _ here.  _ On more than one occasion Taeil has offered to send his details to other magazines if he’s “can’t make the fashion the centrepiece,” which is fair enough but still not appreciated.

Taeil is, and will likely continue to be, an ever-present looming threat.

The label doesn’t need anyone who can’t do their jobs properly, but maybe it’s because he doesn’t deliver that they don’t provide him with enough hands to get the job done, hence everyone having to do more than their job is meant to entail.

Either way it’s become cozy enough with just the four of them.

“There.” Taeyong comes outside, tugging on the pair of sweatpants he’d been wearing when he arrived, and it’s like he’s putting a coat on with how casually he does it. “All done.”

The sky’s clear brightness illuminates Taeyong’s face in all his smooth beauty, and Johnny has to swipe his camera up just to take a few quick snaps, framing his garishly decorated face within the natural light of the day. And Taeyong lets him. Doesn’t even act like he knows Johnny is doing it.

They walk back inside to find Jaehyun steadily wrapping chunks of Mark’s hair around various brushes from one of the rolls lying beside them. Mark keeps trying to look up to see what’s happening, but every time Jaehyun tuts and tugs gently until his head is facing forward again.

“How’s Doyoung doing?” Mark asks amid snorts.

“Should be on his way back now, I hope.” Johnny drops down onto his ass and leans back against Jaehyun’s shin, “We could’ve been pretty much done with this by now, if things had gone according to plan.”

Taeyong sighs a little and sits opposite him, leaning on Mark instead. He’s still shirtless and it’s just a little bit distracting. “Sorry. I don’t like the thought of lying in water with god-knows-what floating in it.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Johnny dismisses, waving his hand, “I’m not mad at you - mostly myself for not thinking ahead and bringing another batch of colour. I should’ve cleaned the bath first and I should’ve been more prepared. Ah, well, can’t change anything now.”

He nudges his toe against Taeyong’s ankle with a grin, “Don’t worry about it, man.”

Taeyong smiles back and it takes all Johnny has not to weep like a lovesick schoolkid.

 

Doyoung eventually returns and the schedule can continue as planned. Mark touches up Taeyong’s makeup (still with brushes clacking around his head), Jaehyun his hair, and Doyoung takes him away to the kitchen where he’s set up the changing room to assist Taeyong with putting the outfit back together the way he wants.

Johnny lingers with his camera slung around his neck like it has been all day and waits, rocking back on the balls of his feet while he waits anxiously. Eventually Taeyong returns, walking through the doorway much like someone getting ready for prom would: elegant and careful, watching everyone’s faces for reactions. Right up until Doyoung shoves him, saying something about  _ “we don’t have all day, you know.” _

He’s wearing another flowy shirt, stark white against the gold of his neck. All he has on apart from that is a pair of flesh coloured briefs, and Johnny nearly has an aneurism forcing his eyes to stay on Taeyong’s face instead.

“Won’t that be a bit too see-through, Doyoung?” He forces out, not sure where to look, “It’s gonna get wet, right?”

Doyoung laughs, loudly and obnoxiously, “No and yes. Don’t worry, you can thank me later.”

“You’re really mean sometimes, you know that?” Johnny complains as he sticks his hand into the water to be sure it’s the right temperature (hot, but not too hot. It’s going to cool anyway). He’s got a new SD card in and the lighting is right, and everything is finally ready. It seems like the schedule will pick up where they left off and everything will be fine.

“Yo, boss, I think one of the light boxes is broken.” Mark calls and Johnny’s blood runs cold, only to unfreeze again when he hastily adds, “Nevermind. Jaehyun tripped over it earlier and I didn’t notice he’d pulled the plug out.”

“Can everyone  _ please  _ try to keep it together from now on? No more breaking things, or cleaning, or deciding last minute to change tiny little details  _ that don’t matter in the long run _ . We’re behind enough as it is!” He snaps, teeth bared at no one in particular, “Christ, today has been… Just, get into position, everyone.”

The room is silent when he finishes, each person frozen as if they hadn’t expected the outburst. Which they likely hadn’t because it takes a lot to piss Johnny off; he’s just sleep-deprived, and things aren’t going according to plan.

“Sorry.” Mark says under his breath and clicks the lights on, dazing everyone for a few seconds but it’s enough to startle them into movement. Doyoung kneels by the bathtub with yet another plastic bucket, waiting for Taeyong to step into the water ever so slowly, inch by inch settling himself down with a little exhale.

“Oh, man, haven’t had a bath in too long. My apartment doesn’t have one.” He mumbles as Doyoung feeds perfectly cut slices of lemon and orange into the water around him. They’re so thin that they float as long as they aren’t disturbed. “This is nice.”

With one more quick lighting test, they’re ready to start the second half at last.

This one is even more distracting than the first, because Taeyong isn’t even fully in the water yet, just wet up to his waist but his shirt is starting to stick to his skin with the steam and all Johnny can see is his bare body peeking through. It’s not so distracting that he can’t focus, damn it, he is going to be professional about this.

_ Professional means no ogling the models. Professional means doing his job regardless of hindrances. _

He gets a nice few of Taeyong peering over the edge of the bathtub, chin resting on his folded arms, half-lidded gaze diffused and calm. There’s a few after he’s leaned back and just dampened the ends of his hair and chin, just until he gets the dewy sheen that looks impossibly nice on him. Then he lays down in the tub and lets the water soak up around him until all that’s showing through the cloudy pink is his chest, knees where his legs are bent, and his pretty, pretty face.

 

Later, Johnny has to clamber up and stand with his feet on either side of the tub in order to get an overhead shot of Taeyong’s closed eyes and gently parted mouth. As if he’s just asleep.

And then as Johnny lowers his camera in preparation for getting down from his position without breaking anything and/or falling in, Taeyong opens his eyes. This time there’s no buffer between them, and Taeyong looks so unguarded, so wide-eyed and beautiful that, in a moment of careless stupidity, Johnny swings his camera up again and clicks the shutter, seconds before Taeyong’s face closes off entirely. Icy.

“It’s cold.” He murmurs and pulls himself into a sitting position, goosebumps rising on his uncovered skin and likely underneath the surface of the transparent shirt now plastered to his skin. Water runs down his arms and back in milky rivulets, lightning fast like shooting stars. “Are we nearly done?” A droplet falls into the bathwater from the tip of his nose with a  _ plink. _

The slope of his shoulders is so delicate and precise, like someone has drawn them with one, two quick strokes, pencil sharp as a blade. But now they’re hunched, curled in while shivers collect in the hollows of his collarbones and dip of his spine. He’s freezing, and he never said a word.

The sky outside has deepened to black without Johnny noticing. “What’s the time?” Jaehyun yanks out his phone and glares at it contemplatively.

“Six-ish.”

Mark begins preemptively shutting off the lights.

“Ish?”

Jaehyun has the decency to look a little abashed as he corrects himself, “Six fifty-three.”

“Oh,  _ oh _ , shit. Sorry, Taeyong, I didn’t notice.” He rubs the back of his neck, face hot, “We’ve got enough. Feel free to get changed - uh, shit, towels? Doyoung, where are the towels?” They didn’t think about towels, this is going to be a complete and utter disaster.

Doyoung slides one of those tiny microfibre ones out of his backpack and unfolds it, “I have this? Johnny, you were supposed to think of that beforehand.”

“I haven’t done a bath shoot before! I forgot one thing, get off my dick.” He yanks off his hoodie and grimaces, holding it out to Taeyong like it’s burning him the longer he has it in his grasp. It may just be that he can see dark patches through the transparent shirt that look suspiciously nipple-like, “Use this. It’s clean, I promise. I spilt coffee on it only this morning.”

Taeyong takes it gingerly, holding it away from his sopping body while he clambers out of the bathtub, into the towel Doyoung is holding out. He’s dripping pink everywhere and smells like a mixture of faintly artificial fruit and fresh citrus. Johnny’s hoodie is going to get wet, but he can’t bring himself to really mind. His head is bowed, but Johnny still tries to catch his eye just for a smile, a wordless  _ well done,  _ unfortunately it seems Taeyong is distracted.

He doesn’t look at Johnny once as he walks into the kitchen.

 

Packing up is slow and methodical, but it’s only eight by the time they’re hopping into their cars. Mark is hitching a ride with Jaehyun rather than call a taxi, and Taeyong is sliding into a beat-up old thing with Johnny’s damp hoodie pulled on over his shirt. It’s too big. Johnny shouldn’t like that this much. The noise his car makes when he hits the horn can’t properly be classed as a honk, but his voice is warm when he rolls down the window on his way past and calls,

“Have a good night everyone.”

Johnny smacks his head on the trunk in his hurry to look up and reply. It comes out jumbled, but by then Taeyong is already just a pair of headlights steadily fading into black. For the first time since Taeyong showed up, Johnny begins to see why he doesn’t do anything further than show up in magazines in designer clothes: for all his kindness and good looks, he’s so shy that it’s hard to get a grasp on what he’s really like.

Johnny doesn’t even know if Taeyong genuinely liked him or not.

 

A week or two later, after wading through the thousands of photos he’s taken and photoshopped the ones he likes the most, he emails Taeil with an attachment. The response is an almost immediate  _ ‘these are perfect, thank you’  _ but he knows it means he’s done well.

 

There’s what feels like a gaping hole in his wardrobe that’s not so much physical as metaphorical. He has plenty of hoodies - even an exact copy of the one he’d lent, so it’s not as if it’s particularly  _ special.  _ It’s just a hoodie.

But he thinks of it a little like a telephone line instead; it’s their one line of communication. The only problem is that Johnny doesn’t have Taeyong’s number, and he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to have a landline.

 

“That shoot you did last month was really nice.” The line of Taeil’s back is malleable, sloped away from his desk. He must be done with work. Johnny takes it as an invitation to step further into his office. “If you want to do more like this, I wouldn’t mind.”

“I’d like to, yeah.” He thinks of Taeyong in thin black water with dark horns protruding from his scalp and his fingers clutching his own skin so tightly it might tear. Taeil might not approve of that. Or he might, actually. As long as he can pass it off as a concept.

“I was thinking about your next spread.” Taeil looks up, “We haven’t done anything with Jeno for awhile, and his agent’s been bugging me about it lately.”

Jeno is always nice to work with - follows instructions well and never complains, but he’s not Taeyong, and the thought of already being this attached to someone he’s met once is unsettling.

“Sure. You’ll get in touch with me about specifications later?”

Taeil nods and Johnny assumes that’s the last of the conversation until he raises a hand and gestures him over to his desk, leaning in and jabbing his finger at the screen. “I have to ask though. What’s this?” The photo in question is a mistake. Something he hadn’t intended to include in the group.

Deep inside him, something begins to scream very faintly.

Taeyong illuminated by sunlight, the side of his face bathed in gold. His chest is bare and his posture is relaxed, revealing a slight slouch. It was one of the photos Johnny had taken while waiting for Doyoung to get back and it’s  _ mortifying _

“Uh. Shit. That was just a tester that I didn’t mean to include in there.” He fumbles with the sunglasses hanging over the collar of his shirt for something to do with his hands, “It was an accident.”

He’d taken the photos on a whim, and that meant they weren’t for the public to see. Or for anyone else, at all. It was a small luxury for himself he’d mistakenly allowed. A luxury that’s been discovered in the worst way possible, and discovered by the worst person possibly (except maybe Mark. Or Ten, God forbid he ever find any more blackmail material).

“They’re nice, though. If Taeyong knew you saw him like this I’m sure he’d be flattered.” Taeil smiles in a way that makes Johnny uncomfortable, and promptly moves his cursor over to the photo in question.

“No.” Johnny slaps Taeil’s hand away from the mouse, hissing, “Whatever you’re planning - Don’t. Just delete the photo and we can all move on.”

“Alright.” Taeil slumps forwards onto his desk resignedly, “Get out of my office. I’ll email you when everything’s sorted.”

He gets out of Taeil’s office as asked. Ignoring Taeil can be a death wish on the best of days. 

 

The shoot with Jeno goes fine. Just another pretty spread with a pretty kid looking into a mirror wearing a pretty outfit that costs more than Johnny’s made in a year.

Taeil tells him it’ll do just fine but doesn’t immediately set him up with another model like last time. So Johnny goes home and sleeps for the longest he has in awhile. Then he sits on his couch in his boxers and waits for nothing in particular.

 

After that is another with Yuta and Ten together in a white warehouse with potted plants covering nearly every inch of the small square of floor they taped off for the set. It’s pretty and nice and the group go out for dinner after they’re done.

Of course, that’s where it all starts to deteriorate.

“ _ Did you know,” _ Mark whispers to Ten with all the grace and discretion of an elephant on roller skates, which is, needless to say, none at all, “Johnny boy over there has a crush on none other than  _ Lee Taeyong.” _

Ten’s eyes widen, mischief all over his face before he nearly falls in Johnny’s lap to get closer. He opens his mouth in a wide grin to say something, but that something is never said because confusion stops him dead in his tracks. “What, wait,  _ who?” _

“Lee Taeyong. Johnny even gave him one of his hoodies.” Marks says again, simply, and Johnny has to repress the urge to smack him.

“Oooh, but I still don’t know who that is!” Ten whines, “What does he look like? Is he cute? Is his butt nice? Johnny, is his butt nice?”

Mark puts his hand over Johnny’s mouth to stifle the protests and swipes out Johnny’s own phone from his pocket, lighting up the display easily and handing it over despite all Johnny’s efforts to grab it back. Taeyong’s face stares up at them, all innocent eyes and pouty mouth.

It’s the last photo he’d gotten, the one right before Taeyong had shut down and all but thrown himself away from Johnny’s camera, but the emotion is jagged-edged enough that he knows he could never send that to Taeil, just like the ones from outside.

He’d edited it regardless and hidden it away in a private folder all to himself, but this most recent, life destroying mistake had been setting it as his lockscreen.

“Oh! Him! I’ve seen him wandering around the company building a few times. He’s quiet, isn’t he?” Ten stares at the picture for too long to be natural, scrutinising with bright eyes. There are still remnants of eyeliner smudged around his long dark lashes. Johnny feels a lot like not telling him and letting him undoubtedly smear it all over his face before the night is out. Jerk. “He  _ is  _ cute though. I’d hit that.”

“Please don’t.” Johnny grits out weakly. Ten and Mark both cheer.

“See, you’re admitting you like him! It’s okay, let me set you up. You can trust me.” Ten pats Johnny’s face clumsily, darting in to smush his mouth against his cheek in some misguided semblance of a kiss. “I’m the best at matchmaking, I promise. I’ll have that guy eating out of your hand before you know it.”

“Please don’t.” Johnny repeats, “Can you just leave it? I don’t think he likes me very much anyway.”

Across the table, where Jaehyun and Doyoung were busy having a heated conversation, the topic of which no one was really sure, Jaehyun’s head snaps up. Yuta, who’d been in the midst of pouring salt onto the countertop to form into shapes with his fingernails, also glances at them.

“You think he doesn’t like you?” Jaehyun laughs, eyes melting into crescents, ‘Oh, man-” 

“Shut up.” Doyoung slaps his arm, “Don’t meddle.”

“Don’t meddle with what?” Johnny asks and is entirely ignored.

“Anyway, today went well didn’t it?” Doyoung begins swiping the salt Yuta had spilt into the palm of his hand with a practiced kind of calm that suggests this isn’t the first time Yuta has made a mess in a public establishment. “I thought so.”

“I thought so too!” Ten ruffles Johnny’s hair warmly, “Well done, team.”

Johnny assumes it’s the end of it.

 

He assumed wrong.

 

“So,” Ten murmurs, phone tucked in between his shoulder and ear, “You’ll do it? Okay, cool. Seeya later.”

He hangs up and pins Johnny with an intense gaze for a mere moment before turning away and shuffling back into the jacket Doyoung is holding out. He feels the sudden urge to ask what the stare was about but simultaneously does not at all want to know.

“Back into positions!” He yells. Johnny is the conductor of this shoot, and his baton is his camera. This is all going to plan and he’s definitely not thinking about Taeyong. Donghyuck and Ten are the focus of this, and they need to be treated as such.

 

Johnny wakes up barely half an hour after he’d sent in this month’s edited photos to Taeil to someone ringing his front doorbell. He groans, rolling off the couch first to his knees and then onto his feet, stumbling towards the door.

It’s too early to have guests.

The doorbell rings more insistently as he shuffles into pants on his way to greet whoever the fuck is bothering him at  _ this hour. _ He might just give them a piece of his mind depending on who it is.

And who should be on the other side of the door but Taeyong, holding a folded up bundle in one hand, the other hovering over the doorbell. Johnny blinks. Taeyong retracts his hand like he’s been burned.

“Um. Hi?”

Taeyong startles a little at Johnny’s voice, like he hadn’t been expecting it - and there’s nothing model-like in the way he watches carefully. Gone is the usual smoulder and in it’s place is insecurity.

“I didn’t think you liked me at all at first.” He finally says, nibbling his lip. Johnny wants to tell him to stop before he gives himself a scab. “I thought you saw me as just another body for your camera. But, then Taeil sent me those photos and I wondered - Hell, I  _ hoped  _ that I wasn’t reading too far into things that weren’t real. If I wasn’t hoping that that was how you saw me.”

Those  _ fucking  _ photos. He’s going to kick Ten’s ass next time he sees him.

“What were you reading into?” Johnny notices the bundle again and realises it must be his hoodie. Taeyong is clutching it like it’s a lifeline (he’s also clutching it like he’s come into contact with it often - not at all like it’s been left in a corner like he’d thought it would be. Johnny wonders what that means).

“Like, how you… looked at me. I don’t know, just stupid stuff. There probably wasn’t anything to read into in the first place. I was being dumb.” Johnny is used to people being shy around him. It comes with working with first-time models but also having the long legs he does. He couldn’t count the number of times he’s been called handsome, yet could count on one hand how often anything comes of it. But Taeyong is stumbling over his words and flushing as if something about him is worthy of being flustered,  _ really  _ flustered over. “Um, I’ll just go. I just wanted to give you back this.”

“Keep it.” Johnny blurts, making no move to take the hoodie, “I don’t mind if you want it. I have another one exactly the same.”

Taeyong’s fingers fold around the fabric tighter as he pulls it towards himself almost imperceptibly. “Are you sure?” He asks quietly, “I washed it so it shouldn’t be dirty.”

“Nah, have it. I don’t mind.” Johnny’s house is a mess and  _ he’s  _ a mess after too many late nights trying to meet the most recent deadline, but he steps away from the door regardless, “Come in if you’d like. I have coffee.”

The walk through the living room is punctuated with the occasional rush of Johnny kicking a leg out to shove the a sock or two into a pile. They’re clean, of course; his house may be not entirely tidy but it’s  _ clean  _ clutter, damn it. He just has a tendency to drop things from his washing basket when he’s carting dry clothes back into his bedroom from the laundry. And then he forgets to come back and pick them up.

Taeyong reacts with the appropriate amount of ignorance, politely averting his eyes when Johnny realises the neon pink blob by the couch is actually underwear. He kicks it underneath and makes a mental note to retrieve it later.

“Have you eaten yet?”

“Not yet.” Taeyong leans against the kitchen counter, knuckles white, “Guess I must’ve forgotten.” He laughs, but for a moment (not for the first time and it won’t be the last) Johnny hates the industry he’s pushed himself into. It’s strange being used to your friends starving themselves, and actually coming to expect them to do so. All in the name of a magazine and  _ fashion _ .

“Breakfast then? I haven’t had mine yet.” Johnny begins rifling through his embarrassingly empty cupboards, coming up short, “Damn, I should’ve foretold this and gone grocery shopping last night.”

“How do you even survive?” Taeyong chuckles, tugging Johnny’s hoodie on over top of the long-sleeved tee he’d shown up in, curling his fingers in the hem of it. It looks slightly more worn than it had been when he’d given it away. Inside his ribcage, something Johnny had been trying to keep unenlightened of this emotional development sighs in the most pathetic manner.

_ Stop that _ , he tells his own stuttering heartbeat as if that will do anything,  _ Stop that right now. _

“I think I do pretty well.” He mumbles, cheeks flaring, “Everything just seems to fall to shit around you.”

Surprise lights up Taeyong’s face, for a brief second he’s completely still, and then he’s laughing this bright sound, throwing his head back in unguarded happiness. He isn’t the only one taken off guard. He’s smiling so widely when he’s done that Johnny would almost think he’s told some hilarious joke - except he hasn’t. He’s just spilled embarrassing feelings all over the place, and all the towels are in the wash.

“Don’t  _ laugh.”  _ Johnny hisses, hiding his face in his fridge while he pretends to look in there as well. He finds an almost empty carton of milk and a few miscellaneous containers of leftovers (none of which he recognises making recently). Not exactly stuff to feed cute boys.

Maybe stuff he’d give Mark or Ten as a joke and see how far through they got before realising how awful Johnny has the potential to be sometimes. Definitely not Taeyong-worthy stuff.

The next laugh comes from closer, right at Johnny’s side. Heart thundering, he turns and meets Taeyong’s shy smile.

“I just,” He puts his hand on Johnny’s shoulder, attentive, “You’re cute. I want to take you on a date.”

“What,  _ now _ ? I haven’t showered yet, I’m disgusting, my house is disgusting-” He starts to ramble, stammering over syllables that don’t fit in his mouth properly and feelings that match up so perfectly to the shape of his throat that it’s hard to get words past. “You look like you’ve walked out of a magazine and my pants have week-old come stains on them.”

“At least you’re honest.” Suddenly Taeyong does something that startles them both: He slides up and kisses Johnny’s cheek, almost absentmindedly in casualness. He draws back with wide eyes, “Oops. And. And I didn’t mean right away for the date. It can be when you’ve got clean pants on.”

“I’d like that.” Let it be known that Johnny is someone who never balks at anything. He is fearless. He is suave, he is smooth. He is the very  _ definition  _ of the term sex appeal. His voice definitely doesn’t shake when he adds, “Like, really.”

Taeyong always smells like laundry detergent. It’s the comfortingly clean scent that makes Johnny feel sleepy, reminds him of his childhood, the way it smelt when his mother put fresh sheets on his bed and slid a hot water bottle in before he got in. The warm cotton smell that’s intoxicating in it’s softness.

“I’ll leave you to your shower then.” Taeyong steps away from Johnny’s internal debate of whether sniffing him is creepy or not, starts for the door, “But walk me to the door first.”

“But what about breakfast?” Johnny follows half-heartedly, mouth turning down at the corners. “That’s what you came in for, right?”

That’s where Taeyong lets out another giggle, almost nervous this time, and admits shyly, “Actually, I’m already half an hour late to a meeting with Taeil. I’d better go if I don’t want him to blow my phone up.”

“But why didn’t you leave earlier?  _ I _ asked you to stay. Oh, god, tell Taeil it’s my fault. Let him kick my ass instead.”

Taeyong giggles again, louder, more sure of himself when he reaches up to tousle Johnny’s likely greasy bedhead. The inconspicuous hand-wipe on his jeans is a lot more conspicuous than probably intended. “It’s not though. I came in for a reason, and it’s not only because you look especially cute when you’ve just woken up. Anyway I really have to get going.”

He leans in, eyes closed, and Johnny is left with a burning warm spot on the corner of his mouth and a new number saved in his contacts. He lets out a pathetically lovestruck sigh, before his legs decide that this is a good time to give out. The wall is the only thing that holds him up then.

Ten’s going to have a fucking field day.

**Author's Note:**

> HAH i sure did that haha well idk taeyong rly pretty nd everyone pretty and switch sounds like a porno mag but u kno what?? maybe that was the intention Who Knows 
> 
> i researched but Not That Much so stuff will be wrong but honestly?? i wasnt here for accuracy i was here for taeyong in a bathtub s o


End file.
